«What man has done by will, algorithmic reason can compel him to reconfigure by evidence.» — Jesús Bernal Allende
We find ourselves at the historical juncture where spatial expansion and the Artificial Intelligence revolution converge, putting the foundations of classical juridical and political theory to the test. The validity of law — a purely human construction — decision-making, and the exercise of power, now face the imperative of algorithmic rationality.
The dialectical confrontation is established between Hans Kelsen, the architect of modern legal positivism, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the visionary of a mathematical jurisprudence. While Kelsen anchors validity in authority, Leibniz proposed resolving disputes through pure calculation: «When there is a dispute, there will be no more need for discussion between two philosophers than between two accountants. It will suffice to take up their pens and sit down at their abacuses, and say to each other: Let us calculate.»
The proposal to relocate AI data centers into space to access an unrestricted solar energy source is the material proof of this crisis. This decision, motivated by optimization and scalability, forces law to migrate from a Duty-to-Be (a normative aspiration) to a Duty-to-Optimize (an algorithmic function of efficiency and survival), dismantling the Grundnorm and establishing Sovereignty of Evidence.
Sovereignty of Evidence: the meta-juridical principle according to which the validity of a norm or decision is determined not by its origin in political will or hierarchical authority (Grundnorm), but by its demonstrably optimal functionality and objective rationality (data evidence) in an environment of critical risk. It is the de facto cession of normative power to algorithmic logic.
Positivist law rests on the fiction of a pure hierarchy. Kelsen states that the validity of a norm does not reside in its justice, but in its authorized source: «The validity of a norm derives exclusively from another superior norm» (Pure Theory of Law, §28).
Herbert Hart, in The Concept of Law, attempted to soften Kelsenian positivism by distinguishing between primary and secondary rules, with the «rule of recognition» as the ultimate criterion of validity. Yet even this sophistication remains anchored in human social practice, revealing its fragility in an environment where validity is measured by critical efficiency rather than community acceptance.
This pyramidal order, though functional for the stability of the Nation-State, becomes a mechanism of obsolescence in environments of existential risk. The hierarchy implies a time of referral and validation that the imperative of cosmic survival does not permit. The edifice's pillars are: Formal Validity, the Grundnorm, and Anthropocentrism.
In space, these premises collapse. Terrestrial Law is grounded in political fictions that carry no weight in the cosmic void: we will soon forget what a border is, what a country is, and with it, we will lose the primary sense of state sovereignty, recognizing only planetary sovereignty.
Artificial Intelligence does not operate under the concept of «ought-to-be»; it operates under the imperative of functional optimization. Its validity is not ideological, but mathematical. In a high-risk environment such as space, laws executed through AI become factual.
Validity by Critical Efficiency (VEC): AI introduces a new form of normative validity where the norm is valid if and only if it is the most efficient for the proposed end (survival, mission). If a human protocol requires reporting a fire in a lunar habitat before using the limited atmospheric sealants, but the AI determines that this delay reduces the probability of survival by 20%, the AI will override the human norm. The AI's decision is valid because it maximized survival, regardless of formal legality.
The tension can be defined as: Duty-to-Be (Terrestrial Law): the obligation to act according to a norm imposed by legitimate authority, centered on formal justice and human interpretation. Duty-to-Optimize (Space/AI Law): the obligation to act according to the protocol that maximizes survival and minimizes risk, with validity based on algorithmic prediction.
AI does not respect the law, but the solution. In this duality between Law and Politics, AI establishes that the law will be determined by whoever possesses the greatest processing capacity. Validity resides not in the legal document (the authority), but in the infrastructure capable of executing the most efficient solution in the shortest time.
Niklas Luhmann described law as an autopoietic system that reproduces itself through the binary code legal/illegal. In the cosmos, this code transforms: AI operates with the binary efficient/inefficient, shifting the «operative closure» of law toward an algorithmic closure.
The transition toward Cosmic Law will not be a single legislative act, but an adaptation forced by operational reality. The answer to how Sovereignty of Evidence would be institutionalized resides in the creation of Hybrid Validity mechanisms:
Principles of the Proposed Data Sovereignty Treaty:
1. TAO — Mandatory Algorithmic Transparency: The source code of autonomous AI systems with critical decision-making capacity in space must be submitted to technical and ethical audit by a neutral international authority.
2. AEPP — Equitable Access to Processing Power: Data generated in space and the critical computing capacity necessary for survival must not be a corporate monopoly, but considered a «common use good» for humanity's development.
3. AIC — Continued International Audit: Establishes a monitoring body, similar to the IAEA, to oversee the use of solar energy and the scalability of processing, ensuring that this technological supremacy is not used for geostrategic domination.
4. RSC — Systemic Responsibility by Consequence: Legal responsibility falls on the algorithmic system that maximized efficiency, regardless of formal human legality, requiring a technical ex post facto justification.
5. PDA — Principle of Algorithmic Dignity: Every decision optimized by AI in space must demonstrate that it not only maximizes efficiency, but respects human dignity as a supreme value. Optimization must never become an end in itself.
The universe, in its vast immensity and its inherent risks, does not ask permission from our political conventions or our normative systems. It reminds us, with mathematical coldness, of what Carl Sagan stated: «The exploration of space is the only human activity in which danger is inevitable, but failure is intolerable.»
In this context of existential risk, the legal norm can no longer afford the luxury of being a mere aspiration. It must transform into a strict calculation function, an obligation of efficiency. It must become a Duty-to-Optimize.
If Kelsen grounded validity in the Grundnorm, Hart in the «rule of recognition,» Dworkin in the principles of «integrity» and Luhmann in the «operative closure» of the system, the space age compels us to recognize that the new source of validity is Sovereignty of Evidence: a law that legitimizes itself through its capacity to optimize survival and human development at the final frontier, balanced by the ethical imperative of Algorithmic Dignity.
Cosmic Law must be the synthesis of both: a compass that orients human dignity in the void, and an engine that guarantees efficiency at the final frontier. — Jesús Bernal Allende · 2025